Real
by Veromorphia
Summary: Mirai Trunks just got back from his journey to the other universe which he has rescued nearly-completely on his own, only to wonder if he's truely alive at all. What makes someone real?


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From the Author: This is just a little something I thought up and decided to type out (at 2:30 a.m. on a school night. '). It was mostly inspired by a video called FADE by I recommend it greatly.

Mirai Trunks has recently returned from his trip to the main-stream universe. Enjoy!

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Real

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It was 3:00 a.m., and he was awake; he was drinking hot chocolate and staring out of the kitchen window into the quiet and desolate night—but was he alive?

Only three days since his return, and it had already all begun to feel like a dream. He had destroyed the androids once and for all shortly after his return, and then simply receded into his thoughts, silent, catatonic, refusing to speak to his mother or Chi-chi who had been so eager to hear what he had to say.

But he had spent the past days lying in his bed, staring up, drifting in and out of shallow slumber. He had dreamt almost-constantly of the dimension where his father was alive, where Goku now existed to spread his veil of love and protection always, where the androids had been destroyed before it was two late.

A series of rather strange visions had flashed before his eyes since then—the deceased Krillin, with whom he had spoken so briefly, happily married to a tame and brotherless Android 18; Trunks himself, at the age of eight or nine, training and playing blissfully with a little miniature of Goku himself, one who had grown up as fatherless as he, but was just as pure as his father; Goku alive again, for whatever reason, and accompanying them all on a trip to a tournament where Trunks proudly defeated the human champion of the world in a single punch.

Trunks opened his eyes, a single question tormenting him then from the very core of his mind. _What is really the dream—this dimension or that? What is the definition of real!_

He felt so helpless then, useless, as if his entire world were nothing but a failed experiment, a little mistake from which would spring the one missing piece of the puzzle needed to bring the true world into being. What made somebody or something "real", anyway; what kept this universe from being…a simple nightmare?

"Trunks," he heard the familiar, broken voice of his mother inquire from the door, so listless; so utterly finished; so unlike the proud and powerful voice of the vibrant young woman he'd met in his recent journey. "Is that you?"

"Yes, Mother." He nodded, turning to her with a warm smile. _Yes, smile at her, comfort her. You're all she has, her only link to the world in which her happiness was truly allowed to exist. How could you have been so cold to her and Chi-chi in the past days? They are all you have left!_ "Yeah, it's me." He took a sip of the hot chocolate, realizing that it had begun to get cold.

When he looked back again, there were tears in her eyes. "Trunks, what…was it like?" She hesitated, staring at him in pained wonderment that he had gone back, that he had seen it all. "How was…your father?"

"He was great," he answered smiling a bit and staring off out of the window again, "He was wonderful. He became a Super Saiyan, you know."

He felt her arms wrap around his neck as she sobbed softly into his shoulder. He stood up to embrace her. "Oh son, I'm so sorry, so sorry I couldn't have done better for you."

He felt the tears well up in his eyes. If only Gohan were here, Gohan who was the most like Goku he had ever known…next to the boy in the strange dreams, Gohan who had seen light when there was only darkness, who had kept hope when there was only despair. Had fate really needed to rip him away as well, just so that Trunks would become the Super Saiyan that some other, faintly-existent cosmos so desperately needed? He supposed it had. Gohan had died so that all of those people could exist, could be happy.

_Gohan, why did it take your death to make me strong? Why did you have to die so that I would be vengeful enough to make the ancient transformation?_

And yet he had answered his own question already.

"Mother, don't cry. It wasn't your fault." He said evenly. Why were they here? Why hadn't they all disappeared already to become some faint vision in the hearts of the blessed ones of the other world? _What made them real?_

And then it hit him.

"I love you, Son. Life should have been more than this."

He shook his head. "It's alright. Everything's alright now. The androids are gone. The terror is over. The world can rebuild itself now," he said, "and tomorrow, we'll invite Chi-chi over and have a nice long talk about Goku and Vegeta and Gohan and everyone else. And then everything will be fine."

That was it. They existed because they simply did. They existed because they were here to converse and love and keep each other alive.

Perhaps if they all just lay on their beds, as Trunks had been doing in the previous days, lay on their beds and closed their eyes and dreamed of the blessed life that would never be theirs, until their physical bodies withered and died—perhaps then they would have truly never existed at all. But then that was no way to live. They had this chance now, to be happy, to overcome, to live as truly as they would ever get a chance to live.

_And so help me_, Trunks thought, _we are going to take it!_

"Oh, Trunks!" She stepped back from his embrace, and smiled up at him, vibrant and happy and beautiful even as the tears still sat in her eyes. And for a second, just a _second_, she was the woman from the World of the Blessed. She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed his cheek. "Trunks, that would be wonderful! But are you sure you're ready?"

He stepped back, allowing the smile on his face to become large and innocent. He gave her a thumbs-up and watched with wonder and pride as her expression instanly became overcome with joy.

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From the Author: Review!


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